iCloud Music Library: The ultimate guide

Serenity Caldwell has been writing and talking about and tinkering with Apple products since she was old enough to double-click. Managing editor of iMore, she hosts a number of popular podcasts and speaks frequently at conferences. In past lives she worked at Macworld and Apple Retail.

Apple has two music subscription services available for you that work with iCloud Music Library: iTunes Match, and Apple Music.

iCloud Music Library is Apple's service for storing your personal music library online by "matching" your tracks to songs listed on the iTunes Store (or uploading tracks directly, if there's no match available). You can then stream and download them — DRM-free — to up to ten other registered devices in your possession.

If you subscribe to Apple Music, you'll get iCloud Music Library included as part of your $9.99 monthly subscription; otherwise, you can subscribe to Apple's iTunes Match service and pay $24.99 a year to store your iTunes library (up to 100,000 songs) in iCloud.

Here's how iCloud Music Library works, how you can subscribe, and how you can get the most out of it!

How iCloud Music Library works

Both Apple Music and the stand-alone iTunes Match service include a feature called iCloud Music Library. Here's what you need to know.

What is iCloud Music Library?

It's Apple's term for all the music you've stored in iCloud.

Wait, stored? Does it count toward my iCloud storage cost?

Nope. You can store up to 100,000 songs with an Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription; it doesn't count toward your iCloud storage costs.

Both? It works with Apple Music and iTunes Match?

Yup, both the Apple Music subscription service and the stand-alone iTunes Match option. iCloud Music Library lets you upload or "match" your personal music library with the DRM-free iTunes Store catalog.

If you have an Apple Music account, you can take advantage of iCloud Music Library and subscription music; if you have a stand-alone iTunes Match subscription, you only have access to your iCloud Music Library.

What's the deal with matching, storing, and the like?

When you subscribe to Apple Music or the standalone iTunes Match service, Apple scans your iTunes music library to check and see which tracks you own are also listed in the iTunes Store.

To save space and upload time, any track in your library that's also available in the iTunes Music Store catalog will "match" to the catalog version; this means that when you play that track on your iPhone or another Mac, you'll get the iTunes Music Store version (a DRM-free, 256kbps-quality AAC file, for those wondering), rather than your original file. Apple uses metadata matching and audio fingerprinting to match your songs to iTunes Store versions. It's not perfect, and you may run into issues with live or rare tracks matching to studio versions; for most users, however, you should be able to use the service without any problems.

Any songs that don't match to the iTunes catalog will be uploaded to iCloud in their original form, save for tracks that are too low-quality (under 92kbps), too long (over two hours), too big (over 200MB), or you aren't authorized to play (say, a song from another user's iTunes account that you don't have the username and password to unlock).

If you have a song in your library encoded in ALAC, WAV, or AIFF, those may be transcoded into an AAC 256 Kbps file when uploaded to iCloud; the original file in your iTunes library won't change.

After your songs are uploaded, they get stored or matched to your iCloud Music Library; any device you own (up to 10) can stream or download songs back from it.

What does iCloud Music Library get me?

A bunch of things! Access to your Mac's library on any of your other devices (up to 10), for one.

If you're an Apple Music subscriber, it also allows you to add songs and playlists from the subscription catalog to your library; you can then save those tracks for offline play.

Do I need a backup before enabling iCloud Music Library?

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. iCloud Music Library may give you copies of your songs in the cloud, but it is in no way a backup service. So please, heed our warning: Make sure you have a complete, local copy of all of your music on your primary computer (or external hard drive) before turning on iCloud Music Library.

Why shouldn't I use iCloud Music Library?

If you don't have a backup of your Mac's library, have lots of tracks with crazy metadata that you're worried iCloud will mess up, or don't want to save songs offline from Apple Music, you probably should leave iCloud Music Library turned off.

Can I still use Apple Music without iCloud Music Library?

You bet. You can even use iCloud Music Library with some devices and not others. More info here:

I turned on iCloud Music Library and it ate my library/destroyed everything/aghhhh! Help?!

Deep breaths. Do you have a backup? If so, turn off iCloud Music Library on your Mac and restore your library from that file.

If you don't have a backup, there are a lot of other things you can try, from chatting with Apple Support to resetting your iCloud Music Library. We suggest checking out our troubleshooting guide linked below if you've run into trouble and are backupless:

What you can and can't do with iCloud Music Library

Now that we've explained what iCloud Music Library is, here's a quick rundown of what it can and can't do.

With iCloud Music Library, you can...

Stream your Mac's library to up to ten different devices you own (including up to 5 Mac or Window PCs).

Delete matched tracks you own on your Mac and redownload them to get high-quality 256kbps DRM-free versions from the iTunes Store (useful if you have low-quality ripped tracks).

You can't...

Manually sync music from iTunes to your iPhone: It's all done over the air now.

Use your iCloud Music Library with Family Sharing: Each Apple ID (and their iCloud Music Library) is separate; you can download any purchases from iTunes, though.

Match or upload more than 100,000 tracks from your library that weren't purchased from the iTunes Store: If you still want to use iCloud Music Library but have too many tracks, make a secondary iTunes library.

Note: If you're only using the $24.99/year standalone iTunes Match service, iCloud Music Library won't give you access to music from the Apple Music catalog: You need an Apple Music subscription for that.

How to enable iCloud Music Library on your computer

If you're signed in to your iTunes account, open iTunes and navigate to the Account menu

Click Sign Out.

Click on the Match tab that appears in iTunes, (or go to Account > iTunes Match).

Select Subscribe for $24.99 per Year.

Enter your Apple ID and password.

After your subscription goes through, select Use iCloud Music Library.

Click Add This Computer to upload and match your computer's music library to iCloud Music Library. (This step may happen automatically, so don't panic if you don't see it.)

Adding an additional Mac or Windows PC is similar to the initial signup process for iTunes Match users; it's also a great way to unify a music library if you've been accidentally building separate collections on your personal and work machines — once you enable iCloud Music Library on both machines, you can download all the songs from your secondary PC or Mac onto your primary computer.

On your secondary Mac, open iTunes and navigate to the Account menu.

Click Sign Out.

Click on the Match tab that appears in iTunes, (or go to Account > iTunes Match).

Select Subscribe for $24.99 per Year.

Enter your Apple ID and password. (You may have to enter it twice.)

Select Use iCloud Music Library to use it on this computer.

iTunes will remind you that you've already subscribed to iTunes Match, and ask you whether you want to activate it on this computer. Click Add This Computer to connect your computer's music library to iTunes Match and iCloud Music Library.

How to enable iCloud Music Library downloads over cellular

If you want to stream songs from your iCloud Music Library over your cellular data connection as well as over Wi-Fi, you can do so by following these steps.

Launch the Settings app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Tap on iTunes & App Store.

Switch Use Cellular Data to On.

Keep in mind that this option not only enables your iCloud Music Library over LTE or 4G, but it also turns on cellular data for automatic downloads and Apple Music. If you'd rather avoid that, you can disable automatic downloads on your devices, or only enable the Use Cellular Data switch when needed.

How to see your local music on your Mac

There are two ways to see your locally-stored iCloud Music Library tracks on your Mac. The easiest way is as follows:

Open iTunes.

Select My Music from the drop down menu.

Go to the View menu and select the Only Downloaded Music.

You can also view what songs are actually stored in iCloud Music Library by doing the following:

Open iTunes.

Select My Music from the drop down menu.

Select Songs from the sidebar.

Go to the View menu and select Show View Options.

Check the iCloud Download checkbox.

The resulting column will show no icon if your track is stored locally; a cloud icon with a downward arrow if your track is stored only in iCloud; or a cloud icon with a line through it if the track is local, but ineligible for iCloud Music Library (usually a PDF).

How to see your local music on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Open the Music app.

Tap on the Library tab.

Tap on Downloads.

To return to viewing all your music, tap the Library tab again.

Troubleshooting iCloud Music Library

If you're running into any iCloud Music Library problems, here are some solutions to the most common issues. Still have a question about it? Let us know in the comments.

I'm so ****** at Apple over this. This is a perfect example of the 'new' Apple. While people have always complained about various aspects of the iTunes UI, the basic functionality was there. And, while I have a pretty big CD collection, Apple finally won me over to buying tracks from their iTunes store.

Now they pull this! I can't use my tracks from MY OWN CD collection, and I can't use the tracks APPLE SOLD ME from their music store, in a reasonable way, unless I subscribe to another service of theirs, which comes with some downsides, and a bunch of unnecessary complexity.

You're absolutely right... it's not just the cost, it's the principal and functionality of it as well.

I've had Apple Music for, maybe four months now?
I used to have custom set artwork for ALL of my tracks, but Apple Music reverted them to the originals. I was finally trying to set some custom ones again, and after maybe 30 seconds, they're reverted back to the original album artwork.

I read somewhere that if you turn off iCloud Music Library, it doesn't do that. And my actual QUESTION is: if I turn off "iCloud Music Library" on my phone, but have all of my Apple Music songs on my iMac, then can I just sync my Apple Music songs from my Mac to my phone? And regardless of that answer, how do I get iTunes to stop reverting my custom album artwork back to the originals?

I'm wondering is anyone else has had this experience. I started out with just iTunes Match, way back when. Later, I joined Apple Music. And then Apple Music started including non-DRM matching and syncing of music files, making my iTunes Match subscription redundant (in theory).

But now in my main music library, I have TWO copies of many "matched" songs. One with all my own settings like star rating, sorting options etc. And one without these same metadata. My guess is that for each of these songs, one is an (older) iTunes Match match, and the other an Apple Music Library match.

I haven't switched off iTunes Match yet because I don't know if I'll lose all those metadata if I do. Any other similar experiences and/or advice? Thanks a lot!

To clarify. The library does work with family sharing... sounds like it doesn't in the article. Just each person has a separate library because of their separate Apple ID. That makes sense because they might have different music, on each of their separate computers. If you have one library on one computer, as I do, you will need to login with each separate Apple ID and let iTunes Match and upload to each person's library one person at a time.

I don't understand why anyone would subscribe to iTunes Match at $24.99/mo. when Apple Music includes iCloud Music Library AND allows you to stream with no ads and unlimited skips for only $9.99/mo. Or am I missing something?

Pretty sure you need Match, which costs $25 annually, then iTunes will upload your files to the cloud when it can't match them with their library, and then they will be available to download them on your iPhone or any other device, anytime. I've been using (and paying for) Match since it launched several years ago with few complaints.

I'm subscribed to both iTunes Match and Apple Music. Now that Apple Music will no longer add DRM to songs I upload, how do I stop using iTunes Match? I've unsubscribed, but I think that just means my subscription won't auto-renew in a few months' time.

How do I go it alone with just Apple Music? i.e., how can I be sure that tracks I upload to the iCloud Music Library are being uploaded via Apple Music rather than iTunes Match?

I am having a terrible problem when I import an album from another source and then sync it to my iCloud music library. This happens, for example, when I buy an album from Bandcamp or eMusic. I import it into iTunes on my Mac. Everything works fine on the Mac. Then I update the iCloud music library, and the album shows up on my iPhone. On my phone, the tracks will play for 15 seconds only and then skip to the next track. If I scroll ahead of 15 seconds it just immediately skips ahead to the next track. About three weeks ago I was having the same problem and the tracks would skip after 30 seconds. Now it's 15 seconds for some reason. Apple says they have engineers looking into this but they still don't know what the problem is. If anyone else has had this problem and a possible solution, I'd love to hear it.

To be completely honest, Serenity, after the issues I had with Apple Music, I just cannot trust it with my Music Library. Changed Album Art/Metadata, Downloading DRM'd tracks for purchases I made in the iTunes Store, Mixing of Subscription and Purchased Data without any clear indicator to let you know what is actually not owned content. Useless Beats 1 Stations (so biased to R&B, Hip Hop, and Rap that they mind as well not exist to me - I'm better off with Free Pandora), etc.

I tried Apple Music twice. I'm not willing to waste any more time and money on it. Using it is stressful because you never know what kind of bugs you'll be bitten by.

I thought I was going insane when dozens of tracks in my playlists wouldn't play after I stopped subscribing, until I realized that they were throwing DRM (License Expired, Please Subscribe to Apple Music) errors and getting skipped when I checked myself...

Since I buy from iTunes and then copy to some other devices (Windows Laptop + Tablet, Android Phone, the External Media HDD on my PS4) it was a royal PITA to fish out the DRM'd tracks and rectify the situation.

I will never risk that again. I'm much more content never subscribing, and listening to the previews in iTunes Store instead, since that's the best thing about Apple music anyways... You get to try the entire song before you purchase.

The price is nothing to me. I pay twice as much for a gym membership I never use (now that I think about it, I don't even think I've ever been inside of that place...). The issue is the risk, and the potential waste of time, when it does something stupid to my music library. I don't have time to deal with those issues. People are busy :-P

"You can't...Manually sync music from iTunes to your iPhone: It's all done over the air now."

This is INCORRECT! You can STILL connect your iPhone to your Mac with your Lightening cable and SYNC your music to your iPhone. In fact, this is the only use I have for iTunes right now on my main Mac at home. My ripped music library is managed by Audirvana Plus and it is my music player as well because I use a separate DAC. All my tracks are AIFF, FLAC, or Apple Lossless. I use my old iPhone 5 as my portable music player and use iTunes to sync albums and tracks to it. All my music is stored outside of iTunes and Apple Music/iCloud Music Library are TURNED OFF. I don't even sign on to the store. iTunes Match basically destroyed my library by replacing my hi res album art and custom metadata that I painstakingly input myself. Thankfully, I had backups and I was saved a lot of pain and heartache.

That said, this article was very helpful. I still have issues with trusting what Apple Music and iCloud Library does on my iOS device. Just the other day, I turned on Apple Music on my iPhone 5 by mistake -- I actually wanted it on my iPhone 6s which was right next to me. I began to search for a song I wanted to play when I realized oops, I'm on the wrong iPhone and went back to settings to turn it off. I immediately noticed tracks that were deleted from the albums I had already synced previously and I couldn't figure out how or why it happened. It's very confusing and I'm curious to see if anything changes or becomes simpler in MacOS Sierra and iOS 10.

If iCloud Music is enable on your phone, you cannot sync music from your computer to your phone. iTunes won't allow it. Your music is "shared" to your devices via iCloud Music. You can, however, sync music between your computer and phone if iCloud Music is turned off on your phone and computer.

iTunes Match damages your local iTunes repo? That's unutterably stupid, it should treat your local iTunes tracks as read-only. I have a lot of 24/96 and 24/192 tracks which can't be redownloaded, high-res artwork, and/or well-tuned metadata that I can't afford to waste time fixing even though I have backups (redoing hundreds of albums would be royally painful). I guess I'll have to live without iTunes Match if it's that broken.

In theory, it should only affect the metadata/album artwork of tracks you download from the iTunes server, but I suspect there's some bad design in there from the 2011 days, when people were matching low-quality MP3s with poor metadata, and Apple wanted to help give them the proper metadata etc.

I signed up for iTunes Match on Sunday on my 2014 Mac mini running itunes 12.2.1 and latest Yosemite. My 80GB of music is all Matched, Uploaded or Purchased but when I try to play the tracks on iPhone 5S or iPad Air iOS 8.4 I very often get "This item cannot be downloaded" error. I've checked, as has Apple Store in town and the tracks are DRM-free and Matched. I've signed out of iTunes and iCloud library repeatedly on all devices but the problem remains. In about 250 albums either track 1 or most tracks (including track 1) or all tracks refuse to play. Any ideas welcome! Harry

I stopped using iTunes match after its first year, because my track were subject to revison. This occurs vis streaming services too. A track is removed and replaced by a different version. The artwork and even the track itself is changed. Amazon music has this issue too.

If you have a lower bit rate of the song then the one on the server you can delete the song and then redownload it off the server. I thought this was done automatically but it wasn't last time I chcked (granted that was 2 years ago). Is that still not the case? If so, then you should have instructions on this "ultimate guide" for that.

I have a small playlist locally stored on my iPhone for offline playing and use Google Play Music app to stream my owned music when I'm on Wifi (which is pretty often). This also justifies me only having the 16GB iPhone... I don't need tons of storage for music.... I don't pay for Google's All Access, I just downloaded the Music Manager on my Mac. I still use iTunes for all my purchases and Google Music Manager will automatically upload all my iTunes music purchases to Google Play music. It's seamless. I can also listen to all the uploaded music on any computer with a web connected browser by signing in to Google Play Music. It's really convenient and I wish Apple would offer something similar with the similar price (free) of course... I spend enough in iTunes in my opinion to feel that's deserved...

Can anyone help me? Every time I stream a song on my iPhone 6 plus, It stores on my phone. I checked my settings after I streamed 26 songs - it now says I have 26 songs on my device (in settings > about) my storage on my device is .1 GB less now. Just wondering how I can fix this? I am not clicking on the cloud when I play - I just click on the song title and stream. Thanks! :-)

Seems to be a universal problem. I'll listen to one song and the next thing you know it shows up as being stored on my 6s as well. I'm on iOS10 Beta and they now have a function where you can delete music stored on your devise without having to sign out and back in to Music or iCloud. It shows how much memory is taken up by the songs and allows you to delete them. It doesn't delete them from your actual music library... just the phone. Guess this was a major complaint in the past... I know it was with me. So they now have a way of curing it without to much trouble.

I like iTunes Match and have been using it for a while. It has a mind of its own with album cover artwork though. Especially if you have been amending the artwork, when you first switch on iTunes Match, it all goes back to what it used to be before the song was uploaded to iTunes Match. This took me an extra 3-4 days to correct but once you've done that it should all be ok. Apple says when you re-download songs they're upgraded to 320 kbps but I don't think that's happening.
I'd still recommend the service overall.

I really wanted to love this and tried it for a couple of years but finally had enough. It will really get screwed up if you exceed the 25K limit on songs. It doesn't just stop uploading new stuff, it will often not connect/recognize that you have an account. It will often spin endlessly trying to "match" your music upon startup, which slows everything down only later to inform you that you've have exceeded the limit, or it stops iTunes from working (restart required). Streaming/downloading is hit and miss with reliability. As others have noted it will get stuck or skip tunes. Once you hit the limit there is no reasonable way to clear the current uploaded content or manage the primary content. It can be done, but it is a major PITA. The multiple iTunes library solutions assume that you have a sufficient amount of music that you never want to be available to Match, and locally requires to to switch libraries when you do want to access that banished music. It also requires that you memorize which library holds the tunes you are looking for.

I wrestled with various limit management hacks for the past year and ultimately found Match to just be too frustrating at most every turn. I and others have suggested what could be very easy fixes for the issues surrounding the25k limit but I don't think Apple will be adding any new support to this functionality considering that music sales are declining and streaming services revenue is increasing.

If you have a smallish collection of music then iTunes Match might just work and you might just enjoy it. But then if you have a small collection you might just as easily download everything to each device and put the $20/year toward a streaming service.

Yeah it drove me insane
I gave it a try last year and if was the still there but not to the extent that it was prior
I wound up getting the my cloud external drive from Western digital and I couldn't be happier

I had iTunes match when it first came out and it's not a bad service
The only real problem was that on certain songs match uploaded an edited version of them
It was frustrating enough for me not to use it again

tumnus, I agree with you on the bugginess. As a long-grumbling iTunes Match user, I can attest that it's just as buggy as everything else Apple does that's connected to iCloud. In my case it manifests in my iPhone not being quite sure whether it has downloaded songs or not. I've spent hours letting it download my most played tracks (to avoid the streaming problems you mention). It will appear to work, and then it will decide that all of those songs aren't on there after all.

The cure that has worked best for me so far is the same cure that seems to be required for all iCloud-related services: log out of iCloud, wipe things out completely, and start fresh. It's annoying that Apple can't make this stuff "just work."

I've had iTunes Match for a year or so, and for the most part I do like it. But because of a couple of nagging issues, I've decided to discontinue using it:

1) I live in semi-rural area-- A smallish city that turns rural pretty fast once you leave the city. Signal just isn't reliable enough to be able to stream songs on the go. Culprits: AT&T and hilly topography.

2) Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. The one that gets me the most riled up is when songs are only partially downloaded. And it only seems to affect certain artists. You'll get 2/3 of the way into a song, and the next song will start playing even though the screen still indicates that it's playing the first song. I've found (ugly) ways of fixing this, but it's always temporary -- it seems to keep coming back.

Another bug is the proliferation of playlists -- for some reason whenever I've had iTunes Match turned on in iTunes, my playlists multiply whenever I sync with iTunes... For example, I'll start with a playlist called "Soundgarden". Tomorrow i'll see two of them. Then sometime later three, then four, etc etc. No idea why, but I've read it's an iTunes Match bug. If I purge the dupes and turn Match off, they're fine. But as soon as I turn it back on and sync, the dupes return.

I have a question on that. I have used iTunes Match for a few years now (or at least when it started), I see all my music, even the stuff that iTunes did not have and was uploaded, how do I get it back?? I've since moved to new computers and love the space, but if I leave iTunes Match, do I just download all my stuff back to my computer?

Oh, so this isn't free? Looks like it's $25/year? I'll stick with Google Play Music. You can upload 20,000 songs for FREE, and listen on any device with the Play Music app. nice try by Apple though. I was excited for a second...

Yup 25 a year. I subscribe to both but google play comes up to 95 dollars per year at 7.99 per month. If you're on a budget iTunes match is a better choice but I like that I can just search any song and play/download it using google play music.

You Pay for Google Play? I use it for free. Did you go over the 20,000 song free limit, or something? I guess, in that case, iTunes Match would be a better choice. I haven't reached my 20,000 song limit in Google Play, so free is the best choice for me now. :)

Ah I guess we use it differently. I do pay but then I get to search and stream any music in its library. I don't use it to store songs(I use it sort of like netflix) so in that sense it is a better deal.

Google Play Music is free for the basic service but isn't a fair comparison to iTunes Match unless you subscribe to Google Play Music All Access. Not mentioned in the article above is ad-free iTunes Radio that comes with iTunes Match.

ad-free iTunes radio comes with iTunes Match? I see nothing about this on Apples iTunes Match info pages. Perhaps you are thinking of Apple Music subscription? (Which I know DOES include ad-free radio.) I would switch to iTunes Match if it does in fact include ad-free radio.

Has the quality improved? I subscribed to this when it was first offered and it wouldn't match about half of my library. I have a huge music library of 20,000+ songs so it took about a week to go through everything. It was frustrating to wait all that time and have songs matched incorrectly or not matched at all. Has that improved?

Do you know how (if possible) to get iTunes Match to stream to an iPhone? I've used it for years now, but whenever I stream a song, it gets downloaded to my phone in the process. I would love to be able to just stream the music like I do on my Apple TV or on my PC in iTunes without having to download it at the same time.